Subscribing for notifications from a CBCharacteristic does not work

Question

First things first: running OSX 10.10.4, iOS 4, Xcode 6.3.2, iPhone 6, Swift

Short story: I have a certain Bluetooth LE device here from which I want to receive notifications when values of a Characteristic change, e.g. by user input. Trying to subscribe to it does not succeed, but rather yields an error Error Domain=CBATTErrorDomain Code=10 "The attribute could not be found."

Long story: So, I have a BluetoothManager class in which I start scanning for Peripherals as soon as my $CBCentralManager.state is .PoweredOn. That's easy, I'm even a good citizen and scan specifically for those with the Service I want

centralManager.scanForPeripheralsWithServices([ServiceUUID], options: nil)

Hoping this will succeed, I implemented the following delegate method:

func centralManager(central: CBCentralManager!, didDiscoverPeripheral peripheral: CBPeripheral!, advertisementData: [NSObject : AnyObject]!, RSSI: NSNumber!) {

    if *this is a known device* {
        connectToPeripheral(peripheral)
        return
    }

    [...] // various stuff to make something a known device, this works
}

So moving along, we get to:

func connectToPeripheral(peripheral: CBPeripheral) {
    println("connecting to \(peripheral.identifier)")

    [...] // saving the peripheral in an array along the way so it is being retained

    centralManager.connectPeripheral(peripheral, options: nil)
}

Yupp, this succeeds, so I get the confirmation and start to discover the Service:

func centralManager(central: CBCentralManager!, didConnectPeripheral peripheral: CBPeripheral!) {        
    println("Connected \(peripheral.name)")

    peripheral.delegate = self

    println("connected to \(peripheral)")
    peripheral.discoverServices([BluetoothConstants.MY_SERVICE_UUID])
}

Which also works, since that delegate method gets called as well:

func peripheral(peripheral: CBPeripheral!, didDiscoverServices error: NSError!) {

    if peripheral.services != nil {
        for service in peripheral.services {
            println("discovered service \(service)")
            let serviceObject = service as! CBService

            [...] // Discover the Characteristic to send controls to, this works
            peripheral.discoverCharacteristics([BluetoothConstants.MY_CHARACTERISTIC_NOTIFICATION_UUID], forService: serviceObject)

           [...] // Some unneccessary stuff about command caches
        }
    }
}

And what do you know: the characteristic gets discovered!

func peripheral(peripheral: CBPeripheral!, didDiscoverCharacteristicsForService service: CBService!, error: NSError!) {
    for characteristic in service.characteristics {
        let castCharacteristic = characteristic as! CBCharacteristic

        characteristics.append(castCharacteristic) // Retaining the characteristic in an Array as well, not sure if I need to do this

        println("discovered characteristic \(castCharacteristic)")
        if *this is the control characteristic* {
            println("control")
        } else if castCharacteristic.UUID.UUIDString == BluetoothConstants.MY_CHARACTERISTIC_NOTIFICATION_UUID.UUIDString {
            println("notification")
            peripheral.setNotifyValue(true, forCharacteristic: castCharacteristic)
        } else {
            println(castCharacteristic.UUID.UUIDString) // Just in case
        }
        println("following properties:")

        // Just to see what we are dealing with
        if (castCharacteristic.properties & CBCharacteristicProperties.Broadcast) != nil {
            println("broadcast")
        }
        if (castCharacteristic.properties & CBCharacteristicProperties.Read) != nil {
            println("read")
        }
        if (castCharacteristic.properties & CBCharacteristicProperties.WriteWithoutResponse) != nil {
            println("write without response")
        }
        if (castCharacteristic.properties & CBCharacteristicProperties.Write) != nil {
            println("write")
        }
        if (castCharacteristic.properties & CBCharacteristicProperties.Notify) != nil {
            println("notify")
        }
        if (castCharacteristic.properties & CBCharacteristicProperties.Indicate) != nil {
            println("indicate")
        }
        if (castCharacteristic.properties & CBCharacteristicProperties.AuthenticatedSignedWrites) != nil {
            println("authenticated signed writes ")
        }
        if (castCharacteristic.properties & CBCharacteristicProperties.ExtendedProperties) != nil {
            println("indicate")
        }
        if (castCharacteristic.properties & CBCharacteristicProperties.NotifyEncryptionRequired) != nil {
            println("notify encryption required")
        }
        if (castCharacteristic.properties & CBCharacteristicProperties.IndicateEncryptionRequired) != nil {
            println("indicate encryption required")
        }

        peripheral.discoverDescriptorsForCharacteristic(castCharacteristic) // Do I need this?
    }
}

Now the console output up until here looks like this:

connected to <CBPeripheral: 0x1740fc780, identifier = $FOO, name = $SomeName, state = connected>
discovered service <CBService: 0x170272c80, isPrimary = YES, UUID = $BAR>
[...]
discovered characteristic <CBCharacteristic: 0x17009f220, UUID = $BARBAR properties = 0xA, value = (null), notifying = NO>
control
following properties:
read
write
[...]
discovered characteristic <CBCharacteristic: 0x17409d0b0, UUID = $BAZBAZ, properties = 0x1A, value = (null), notifying = NO>
notification
following properties:
read
write
notify
[...]
discovered DescriptorsForCharacteristic
[]
updateNotification: false

Hey! It says updateNotification is false. Where does that come from? Why, it's my callback for setNotify...:

func peripheral(peripheral: CBPeripheral!, didUpdateNotificationStateForCharacteristic characteristic: CBCharacteristic!, error: NSError!) {

    println("updateNotification: \(characteristic.isNotifying)")
}

What gives? I told it to be notifying! Why isn't it notifying? Let's set a breakpoint in the line with the println and check out the error object:

(lldb) po error
Error Domain=CBATTErrorDomain Code=10 "The attribute could not be found." UserInfo=0x17026eac0 {NSLocalizedDescription=The attribute could not be found.}

OK, so this leaves me out of ideas. I wasn't able to finde relevant clues regarding that error code. The description itself I cannot fathom since I tried to set up the notification for a Characteristic that I discovered earlier, hence it must exist, right? Also, on Android it seems possible to subscribe for notifications, so I guess I can rule out problems with the device... or can I? Any clues regarding this are truly appreciated!

Answer 1

For me the issue was that I was using another Android device as the peripheral and needed to implement configuration descriptor. See here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/25508053/599743